Ruby security vulnerabilities

Multiple arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities in Ruby have been revealed by the Apple Product Security team which could lead to Denial of Service attacks. A total of five vulnerabilities have been reported, with versions impacted being:

1.8.4 and all prior versions
1.8.5-p230 and all prior versions
1.8.6-p229 and all prior versions
1.8.7-p21 and all prior versions
1.9.0-1 and all prior versions

Upgrading to either 1.8.5-p231, 1.8.6-p230, 1.8.7-p22 or 1.9.0-2 is recommended.

Details could be found at

http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/6/21/multiple-ruby-security-vulnerabilities

http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2008/06/20/arbitrary-code-execution-vulnerabilities

Generate Unique ID

Here is a very simple way to generate a unique id.
[Background support : Abhishek S.]

def generate_unique_id( len )
    chars_pattern = ("a".."z").to_a + ("A".."Z").to_a + ("0".."9").to_a
    unique_id = ""
    1.upto(len) {
			|i| unique_id << chars_pattern[rand(chars_pattern.size-1)]  }
    return unique_id
end
#generates a key of length 10
mykey = generate_unique_id(10)
print mykey # gives a result like "qeKX0myIQh"